Brennan, James

ORAL HISTORY OF JAMES BRENNAN
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
November 2, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is November the 2nd, 2011, and I am at the home of Mr. James Brennan in Knoxville. Mr. Brennan, thank you for taking time to talk to us.
MR. BRENNAN: Thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, let's just go back to the very beginning. Tell me where you were born and something about your family and where you went to school, and…
MR. BRENNAN: My mother and father bought this farm in Bear Creek Valley I would guess about 1915 because they moved in on it in January of 1916. And it's the second farm west of the Anderson Roane County Line, in Bear Creek Valley. And they were there until the government took the property.
MR. MCDANIEL: And so they moved there in 1916, you said, January 1916.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where were they before? Where were they living before?
MR. BRENNAN: They were living in Knoxville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, living in Knoxville?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. And my father was always interested in farming, and he contacted this fellow that was selling some real estate, and that's how he come to know about this place. Now at the time, it was very rural, very rural. And by that, I mean in the wintertime, the roads were impassable. My first school was Mount Horab, which was farther west in the valley, and off of the Valley Road somewhat back in I guess you'd say a holler.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now what year were you born?
MR. BRENNAN: 1918.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1918.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: And so you were born on the farm there, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: And now, did you have brothers and sisters?
MR. BRENNAN: I had an older brother and a younger sister. And my older brother started school first, of course. And I followed up in a year or two and we both went to the same school for about two years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how many acres were on the farm?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, 65 acres.
MR. MCDANIEL: 65 acres.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now you said it was the second farm from the Roane County Line.
MR. BRENNAN: From Anderson Roane County Line.
MR. MCDANIEL: Anderson Roane County Line, right.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now I guess that line is the same today as it was then.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I'm satisfied it is. Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you were in Bear Creek Valley.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. If you're familiar with it, it has this large spring, a good heavy flowing creek away from it, and that's right on the county line.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right on the county line.
MR. BRENNAN: The spring is on the county line. And as I was saying, we went to this Mount Horab School, and our teacher was Alice Henry, and that would have been in the years around 1920 when I was there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now was there only one teacher? Was it just a one-room school?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, it's a one-room school, yes, sir. It was just a little building big enough to have maybe, oh, 25-30 children. And she lived in the Wheat area, and drove a horse and buggy to the school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And that was common transportation at that time, and she just brought along enough feed for the horse and everything went well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And we had to carry our lunch to school. We didn't have a McDonald's close by.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, right. Exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: 'Bout everything went off pretty. Now --
MR. MCDANIEL: How far did you live from the schoolhouse?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, about a mile.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you walked every day.
MR. BRENNAN: We did, yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And I don't know how she did it, but she took care of all six classes or seven or eight. I guess there was --
MR. MCDANIEL: It was probably like first grade through eighth grade, wasn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: It was. And she managed all the classes. Of course, we were all there in the one room, and we I guess all benefited a little bit from whatever class she was teaching.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And, well, I was at that school for two years, and an uncle, my mother's brother, living in Knoxville, died, and he had a mom-and-pop grocery store. So my father decided that he'd take over the store and we moved to Knoxville for a period of about four years. But then the 1929 Depression came on and just before that, the fellow who owned the property where the store was located decided that he didn't want to lease the store any longer, so he left my father to choose something else to do. And then as things got bad from the Depression, he decided to go back to the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Go back to the farm.
MR. BRENNAN: And that's when things got interesting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, at least he could grow his own food out there.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. He did, and bought another little store that there in the community. And you would expect it not to do well at all, But in that day, people didn't mind to walk, and they would walk for miles and carry chickens and eggs and whatever they had to sell.
MR. MCDANIEL: So he bought a store out in Bear Creek Valley.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. Right near where we lived.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, right near where you lived. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And in time, he moved it right into the house that we were living in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And during that time, too, he established himself a route where he drove a team and a wagon, and took along ordinary things that people might buy at that time, like coffee and salt and sugar and such merchandise as that. And he bought about anything they had. He would buy skins from animals. He'd buy rabbits, squirrels, dressed. They had to be dressed and he'd take them to market. And it started off slow, but before very long, he had a pretty lively business out of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: So he traded a lot of stuff with the people.
MR. BRENNAN: He did. Yes, sir. He sold them what he had that they might need, and he bought what they had that he could make use of.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: And --
MR. MCDANIEL: Now I bet by this time, you're probably old enough to go with him on that, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: No, not really.
MR. MCDANIEL: Not really?
MR. BRENNAN: I wasn't born till 1918, so I was too little for it in the beginning.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] yeah.
MR. BRENNAN: But in 1922, his business had done well, and he bought a Model T truck.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And at that time, you could buy them most any way that you like. He bought one that didn't have a seat or a top for it, or not very many -- it had no bed on it. He just had a wooden box up there that he sat on to start with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where did he buy that? Did he buy it --?
MR. BRENNAN: He bought it at Clinton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, he bought it in Clinton. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. Clinton was the nearest town of any size to --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And I'm sure he walked to Clinton. There wasn't any bus service or much way to hitch a ride, and I'm satisfied he walked all the way to Clinton to get that truck.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was 1922?
MR. BRENNAN: In 1922.
MR. MCDANIEL: Interesting story. Just a sideline. I was telling you earlier about this Granger County project that I'm working on --
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- the Jarnagin Ford, I heard the story one of his relatives told the story about how he got his Ford dealership. He was one of the first five Ford dealers in the world.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh.
MR. MCDANIEL: And he said when he got started getting his cars, this was about 1917, they were shipped on the train just in boxes, and when they got to him, he had to put them together.
MR. BRENNAN: I've heard that, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, but --
MR. BRENNAN: I don't know whether this was shipped to Clinton or not. I guess it was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, once he got his truck, he could get to Knoxville and back in a much shorter time than when he was going with the team and wagon.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: About one time to Knoxville during the week was all he could do with a team and wagon.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, in the wintertime, though, the road got so bad he couldn't get into the house where we lived, and Scarborough, which was about five miles away, was as near as he could get to the house where he could leave his truck. And he left it in a lady's barn and she let him lock it up and all of that. And then he'd start walking home. Well, excuse me. We had a telephone system out there at that time, and he'd go to the telephone office and call my mother and she would saddle up two mules and my brother would take mules, go meet him. They understood how to travel over the roadway to meet him. So my brother would ride one of the mules, lead the other one, go meet him. Then they'd come back home. The following day, he had to take those mules and wagon and go to Scarborough and change whatever he had bought onto that wagon and bring it home. This was during the winter months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: In the summer months, it was dry enough he could get home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BRENNAN: But that was the way it was done at that time. And you wouldn't believe it, but at every stream that you came to, you had to ford.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: There was no bridges, no -- well, there's a bridge over the river, but there was no bridges over these little streams or culverts.
MR. MCDANIEL: Those small streams. Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But it had a purpose, too. When you got there with your livestock, they were ready to have a drink of water, so you wheeled in there and let them have a drink, and then you got back on the road again.
MR. MCDANIEL: Got back on the road.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, he carried on like this until uncle died, and we went to Knoxville for a period of time, then we came back home. And he continued the store for a period of time and the route that he had picked up from this person. And finally, that, along with other interests that he had, he had to drop some of it because it was he really had too much to do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Too much to try to do.
MR. BRENNAN: He finally stopped the route and he got out and traded cattle, bought and sold, and traded anyway that was possible.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did he still keep the little store?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. He had the little store during the early part of that. And he'd get these cattle together and they had an auction sale on cattle every Wednesday at Knoxville. And we would load those cattle up and take them to Knoxville and sell them on the market. And as time went on, he got busier and busier at that. There was a good many livestock down in that area and it provided him with a busy occupation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, a fellow came in with a sawmill during that period of time to cut a boundary of timber, and like I say, that was during the Depression. And they never did ever get off the ground with that saw mill. And the fellow had a new tractor that he had bought, and he owed for it. And he got pretty desperate and he finally came to see my father and he learned that my father had a good boundary of timber he had bought on an adjoining property as it became for sale. And finally, up to about 340 acres.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. BRENNAN: And we would keep a herd of cattle and looked after them all during that time, and he would trade whatever he had, a milk cow, for one that wasn't giving milk, and go through all that bit. We always had something to buy or something to sell.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And I tell you, we worked like the dickens.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. But it sounds like you all did pretty good through the Depression. I mean, as far as you had plenty to eat and --
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah, as far as goods, we were raising most everything that people had on the farm that they needed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And --
MR. MCDANIEL: It sounds like your father was a pretty smart man, I mean, as far as businessperson and being able to make.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it's odd. He only had a third grade education, but he knew how to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: And he just once he got into that saw mill, that was on level with the farm in priorities, you know?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: We had to look after the sawmill as well as the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: So he ended up with the sawmill.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, he bought a share in it, at last.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BRENNAN: And this fellow stayed on. And we cut and sawed several boundaries of timber during this time and we were farming, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: At this point, how old were you?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I was in my teens.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, you were in your teens.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were working then, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: You better believe I was working.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] He started us pretty early, and we did whatever we could. That was -- well, like this fellow that I knew in the service said many times, it's just like Sunday on the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, so you were a teenager and you were working and you had the sawmill and you had the farm and you were helping your father with all that.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. My brother and I, and he was older. He had to do a little more than I did, I guess.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did your father have other people that worked for him?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, he did during the time that -- well, even early in that community, there was a good many people that was always ready to help you if you needed something.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And many of them didn't do much in the way of farming. It was kind of odd, but that's the way it was. And there was a whole lot of timber in the area at the time, too, and he bought _____ timber, and we just moved the sawmill about from place to place, and at the same time, we were keeping up with that farm work. And there was just never and idle moment, I'll tell you.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] [Background talk] Well, good. Well, so where were you about that time? Were you in school at this point? Were you going to high school or…?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, part of the time I was in grade school. Then later on, in high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. Where'd you go to high school?
MR. BRENNAN: Robertsville.
MR. MCDANIEL: At Robertsville.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Now about how far was that from where you lived?
MR. BRENNAN: It was some nine or ten miles by road. There was a way that we could take a short route, cross-country, sort of. It wasn't very suitable for an automobile or anything, but we did at times drive this pickup truck to school. The bus only served the schools during the eight months of the year, but high school continued for nine months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And we had to get --
MR. MCDANIEL: Had to get to school, didn't you?
MR. BRENNAN: -- to school any way we could.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: So we used that pickup truck he had, and drove that old road that went as the crow flies.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, as the crow flies.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about the school. Tell me a little bit about Robertsville. How many students were there?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, Robertsville had a grade school and a high school together, and it varied, but it was around 200 in both high school and grade school.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was most of the area.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, that was the only school.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. That was --
MR. MCDANIEL: The only high school in the area.
MR. BRENNAN: That was the only high school in that end of the county. Those that were on the east side of the river went to Clinton during the time I was in. But they had gone to Robertsville earlier. But anyhow, they went to Clinton into Claxton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And that was the only schools in that general area.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you, since you were a young man growing up in that area, what was the community like? What were the people like?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they were farm people, and, well, some of them could read and write, and some of them couldn't. And…
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have a doctor in the community? Did you have teacher?
MR. BRENNAN: Our nearest doctor was at Wheat.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, was it?
MR. BRENNAN: Dr. Cross at Wheat. And if anybody got sick, the old doc got out with his horse and buggy and went to see about them. And if anybody saw him coming and had a little something that you want to talk to him about, they just stopped him and he's stop and talk. He would look at a patient on the way to see another one.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course.
MR. BRENNAN: And do things like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah.
MR. BRENNAN: Very accommodating.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess speaking of Wheat, Wheat was kind of a thriving community at that point, wasn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it was, but I don't think it was more so than Scarborough and Robertsville was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Huh.
MR. BRENNAN: They claimed to be the most, but anyhow, you know everybody lays claim to something that might be interesting.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] But Robertsville and Scarborough was pretty -- I guess you had everything you needed.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, yeah. At Scarborough, we had three stores and two churches and a school and two gristmills. That's where they grind your corn and all that. There was a fellow that had a garage that repaired cars that sort of thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Speaking of cars, I bet that truck was one of the first ones in the community, wasn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: It was one of the very first.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: In fact, during the timeline while my brother and I were young and we were living there in Bear Creek Valley, if we heard a car or a truck off in the distance, we went out front to watch it go by.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: We sure did.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: I know there was one fellow, too, had an old motorcycle, and at times, he'd ride that motorcycle and come down in the valley and go back up the valley. We always went out to cheer him on, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Background talk] So, anyway, I was asking about you said his was the first car, the first truck --
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- I guess in the area. So all right, so let's move on past that. So you graduated high school.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year did you graduate?
MR. BRENNAN: In '38.
MR. MCDANIEL: In '38. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I spent six years to get through high school. My father kept me out two years when we were real busy with that sawmill and I had to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: But I was out for two years after my junior year.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? So you --
MR. BRENNAN: Then I went back and finished in '38.
MR. MCDANIEL: Went back and finished. Now did you go into the service right away or what happened?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, no. I didn't go into the service until '42.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BRENNAN: January of '42, I went in to the service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me what happened between when you graduated high school and you went into the service.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, the one thing that happened was that my father had bought a little farm at Scarborough, and it had about 65 acres, had an estate sale to settle an estate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: It was the -- there was one other house going down Bethel Valley that had electric current and stopped right there. And we never could get it down where we had lived on the farm. He bought property because of the fact that electric current was --
MR. MCDANIEL: It had electricity.
MR. BRENNAN: And we prepared the house and they moved up there. And I was only home about week after they moved up there before going to service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And they stayed on, and I guess they would have probably stayed there as long as they lived if the government hadn't chose that area for what it did.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went into the service in January of '42?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: So a month after Pearl Harbor.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me, did you volunteer?
MR. BRENNAN: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. BRENNAN: I volunteered.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor?
MR. BRENNAN: I was home at that time. See, that was in '41, and I was home at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. But what were your thoughts or your folks' thoughts on that?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, like everybody else, I guess, I was upset with it, but there was nothing you could do. It had already happened and you felt sure something worse was coming on, so it did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. So you joined the service. What branch of the service?
MR. BRENNAN: Army.
MR. MCDANIEL: The Army? Now where was your brother at this point?
MR. BRENNAN: My brother had married and I guess he had two children at that time. And he never did have to go. He had a job at Alcoa by that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did he?
MR. BRENNAN: And he never did ever go to service.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went in the service in '42.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: And how long did you stay in the service?
MR. BRENNAN: I stayed in the service 3 years and about 10 months, but I spent 38 months overseas.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And you were gone when your parents had to move.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I'd been in the service a year, and at times when they were writing to me, they mentioned things that was going on. They didn't know what was coming about, but at first, I believe it was known as a demolition area. And as time went on, people began to realize it was something different than a demolition area, because all this activity and building and carrying on like that. They realized that there was something bigger happening.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And then they finally let it be known that the government was to build a facility there. While I was down there in Southwest Pacific, a fellow got a letter from his brother, and he had a return address on it was Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And I was the only person in the unit from Tennessee, so right away, he came to visit me and know where Oak Ridge, Tennessee was. I told him, I said, "I never heard of the place in my life."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And he showed me the letter. I read it, and the way it was describing things, it sort of cleared up a little bit to me where it was. And I told him, I said, "I bet you that's that place where I lived." And later on, I found out for sure it was. But his brother had written something to him that I guess he never should have written. He said he told him, he said, "I can't tell you what's going on here, but," he says, "I know they're experimenting with atomic energy." And that's all it would have took to put him away if they'd a known he did that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, as time went on, then, my parents kept me pretty well up to date on the happenings and how changes were going on and where it was and the lot.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now when did they have to move?
MR. BRENNAN: They had to move out in November -- or December.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of '42.
MR. BRENNAN: Of '42. And they gave them ten days. And we must of had 40 head of cattle and maybe that many hogs.
MR. MCDANIEL: And he had the two farms by this point, didn't he? He had the smaller one where he was living?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it was separate from these others, but the rest of it was all in one track. Anyhow, I don't know he ever got rid of what he had.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. But they had ten days to get out.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, do you remember how much they paid him?
MR. BRENNAN: They were only going to pay him $7,000.00 to begin with, and he took it to federal court.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did he?
MR. BRENNAN: And they just about double what he had been offered to start with. But he still --
MR. MCDANIEL: It still wasn't enough, was it?
MR. BRENNAN: No, sir. And his money was held up and he never did ever own any farmland anymore.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: No, he wanted to get a farm, but he never was able to have a farmland anymore.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh. Where did they move to?
MR. BRENNAN: They moved to this area between here and Oak Ridge, down there at a place on Merchants Road, just off Clinton Highway, about --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BRENNAN: -- back in this direction.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And they lived there a while until this property at Powell was -- I guess it was sold to settle an estate. Anyhow, there were three houses and about three acres, I guess. And he bought that and they moved to Powell and lived for some ten years. They were living there when I came home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Did he stay -- a lot of people that I've talked to, they were upset over what happened, and they never really got over it.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, he never did, either.
MR. MCDANIEL: He never did?
MR. BRENNAN: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: He just felt like they'd done him wrong.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they really had. I don't know what the fear of the people who was living there was like, but for some reason they wanted all those people out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And those people coming in there, they knew very little about, and if a fellow was a thug, he come in there and work through all of that and get out and go on his way.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And there was all kinds of criminals came in there during that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you thought and I guess your father's thought was they should of just let him stay.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they didn't do anything on his farm there except put a water line through for, well, until this Spallation Neutron Source came about.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And it's right in the middle of the farmland my father had.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is it right in the middle where the farm is?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. Well, I guess they had to clear everybody out 'cause at least they thought they did.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they thought they did, and they sure did, too. One old fella just didn't agree to peacefully, and they move him across the river.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. And left his buildings and everything. Well, as soon as they got through with him, he just picked up and went back across the river where he had been.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? My goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] They came in and burned his barn down, and his house and didn't leave anything in the way of a shelter for him. And this was in mid-winter. He had to go somewhere after that. I don't know what happened to him.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. My goodness. So your parents moved to Powell, and that's where they were living when you got back.
MR. BRENNAN: When I got out of service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Got out of the service.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you said 38 months you were overseas. Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where were you?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I came home from the Southwest Pacific, Solomon Islands in 1944.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And I was assured that I wouldn't be shipped out anywhere else for at least six months. But five months later, I was getting on a ship and we went to Europe for the Belgium and the Bulge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And I was over there nine months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? My goodness. So you were discharged when?
MR. BRENNAN: In '45.
MR. MCDANIEL: After --
MR. BRENNAN: November.
MR. MCDANIEL: November. So they kept you in the service until after the war was over.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, see, the reason for it was, the troops that was over there that didn't have much time in was going to be sent on to Japan. And we became the Army of Occupation, and all during that time, while they were getting those ready to send them to Japan, we were more or less policing the country.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And we had the routes that we patrolled and did that sort of thing. The time came on and they let us know we were going to be sent home. And we were in Bavaria. That's sitting pretty deep into Europe. And we got on a train, trains and they brought us back into France. And we went into France at La Havre and we went out when we left at La Havre.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where were you when you heard about the atomic bombs being dropped?
MR. BRENNAN: I was in Germany.
MR. MCDANIEL: In Germany?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And I guess they talked about Oak Ridge?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I don't know that they did so much. At that time, we got news of things, but kind of slow. Well, when --
MR. MCDANIEL: But I guess about that time, things were kind of wrapping up in Europe, weren't they?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. It was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Things were kind of settling down a little bit in Europe.
MR. BRENNAN: I remember when Roosevelt died, we were there, and a German lady came to -- we were just out rambling around. A German lady came to the window in the house and raised the window and asked us if we had heard that Roosevelt had died. She knew it before we did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. My goodness. Okay. So you came home from the service in November of '45. So tell me about what happened then.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, after I got home, I looked around for a job. It was pretty important to get a job pretty quick because to make that kind of an adjustment if you was busy doing something, it was easier.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But it took me about a month, but I got a job at that water plant.
MR. MCDANIEL: The water plant at where?
MR. BRENNAN: At Whitwell, the one high on the hill. And I worked there for I guess nearly five years, but it was a dead-end kind of a job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: They never had good pay rates or good conditions or anything, and I didn't enjoy the work, either. And when I could, I got out and got into --
MR. MCDANIEL: Trouble?
MR. BRENNAN: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: I stayed out of trouble. I got into studying refrigeration.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MR. BRENNAN: And after a period of time, I got a job at Kingsport. I went up there and worked a year with some people who was pretty sharp in the work I was doing. I came back to Knoxville then and went to work out there at K-35.
MR. MCDANIEL: K-33?
MR. BRENNAN: K-33. That's right.
MR. MCDANIEL: K-33. Yeah. What'd you do out there?
MR. BRENNAN: I did pipe work.
MR. MCDANIEL: You did your pipe work?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. Now were they building it then, or it had already been built?
MR. BRENNAN: They were in the process of building K-33. It was pretty well along when I got there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But it was well underway at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. So you didn't -- How long did you stay out there?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I stayed out there for about a year. And I came into Knoxville I started working for the local contractors. And I did that until I retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: What kind of work did you do?
MR. BRENNAN: Mostly refrigeration.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. At that time --
MR. MCDANIEL: Commercial type?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah, commercial and residential, too, a little bit.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you? Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And I worked there until I retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did you retire?
MR. BRENNAN: In '84.
MR. MCDANIEL: '84?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were well beyond retirement age when you retired, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, no. I --
MR. MCDANIEL: When you work for yourself, I guess you don't ever get to retire. You just kind of quit, don't you? [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] Well, I worked for a contractor till the time I retired. We had pretty good benefits and better than average working salary.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yep? Well, that's good. That's good. So your parents, they stayed in Powell, you said, for about ten years?
MR. BRENNAN: No, sir. They stayed out there for about ten years and then they moved to Knoxville over off of Broadway at Canyon Avenue, right there near Rose's Funeral Home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: My father was still working at that time, and he had moved over there earlier.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Exactly. What have I not asked you about that you wanna talk about?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I don't --
MR. MCDANIEL: Why didn't you stay at K-25 -- I mean, K-33?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, see, it was winding down, the construction was, and it came a time when they were laying off people and, of course, I hadn't been there too awfully long anyhow, so they laid me off and started work here in vs.
MR. MCDANIEL: Who was your boss over there? Do you remember?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, let me see. The fella's name was Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: What?
MR. BRENNAN: Center, C-E-N-T-E-R.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BRENNAN: And they name the little Park.
MR. MCDANIEL: Park Center.
MR. BRENNAN: Park Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: Clark Center.
MR. BRENNAN: Clark, Clark is the name, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Clark Center.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. The reason I come to remember him, I'd been to a movie or a basketball game or something there one night, and I was on Clinton Highway and he hit me in the rear.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] And didn't tear my car up too bad, but it tore his up worse than it did mine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did it? Oh, my.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, he didn't want the police to come, so, well, we talked a little bit, and he told me about who he was and where he was. I had to tell him about working there, too. And he said, "Oh, we can settle this tomorrow." I let him con me into that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BRENNAN: The next day, I was go up and see him. I went up to see him and I guess you'd say he was kind of businesslike about it. He already had a sheet of paper about this long written out and he just handed it to me and said, "Read this and sign it." I looked it over and I told him, I said, "And I'm gonna read this paper."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: "But I promise you now I'm not gonna sign it." "Oh, yes, you are." I said, "You misunderstood me. I told you wouldn't sign it. But I am gonna read it and you be quiet while I read it." So I read the paper, and he had it written up that I was to assume all responsibility for that accident.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And I told him, I said, "Something happened to you during the night." I said, "You must a forgotten that you hit me in the back." He said, "You just sign that paper." I said, "Mister, I already told you, you don't hear good. I won't sign that paper or any other paper you write out."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
Mr. Brennan: And, oh, we carried on there for a little while. He wasn't very pleasant at all, and finally I told him, I said, "Now I've done all I'm gonna do I may as well go back to work. And day or two later, he had my general foreman informed me that I was to come up and see him. And I told that old boy, I said, "Now, listen. I'm not going up there 'cause all we can have up there is a cuss fight, and I don't want that, and he wants me to sign a paper of full responsibility for a wreck that he caused. I'm not gonna do it." Well, he said, "It'd make it easier on me if you'd go up there." I said, "Well, for your benefit I'll go. But I know already we're not gonna get along. We're gonna have a fight."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: I got up there and he had another paper written out that wasn't too different from the first one. Said, "Read this and sign it," I said, "Listen, I've told you already, I'm not gonna sign any paper, but I will read it. I'll do that much for you. I'll read it. I read it, and I passed it back to him, and he's said, "You sign that." I said, "No, I won't sign it." Well, he didn't know what to do so finally I went on back to work, and the next time I heard from him, he was furious, and he still wanted me to assume responsibility for the wreck. I said, "Now, listen, I filed a claim with your insurance company. They've already written a check and I've already put it in the bank."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: "And if you want any money out of my insurance company, you're gonna have to file a claim, and if they want to pay you anything, that's all right with me. But I'll tell you now, they're not gonna pay you.”
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: He said, "That's what makes me so mad." Said, "My wife has give me hell over this."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: I said, "Now I can't help you with your wife, but I'm not gonna sign any paper. So that's about all I can do for you."
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, a little more time went by. He came out on the job and hunted me up there one day. And he was still feuding about that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And, well, I didn't work too long after that and I don't know how he ever came out, but the insurance company's -- I told him, I said, "You know more about insurance companies than I do and you know how they settle things. And they've already settled with me. If you've got a gripe, you'll have to get it settled."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] That's funny. My goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, it was kind of humorous as the time went on. When I told him I couldn't help him with his wife, he'd have to take care of that himself, everybody around him laughed. [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Oh, that's funny. I've never heard that story, but that's a good story to have about old Clark Center. [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: Well, that's the only run-in I ever had with him, so that's the only way I really knew him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, you know how to tell it, isn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. Well, is there anything else that we hadn't talked about that you want to talk about?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I don't know of anything in particular.
MR. MCDANIEL: How old are you now? 93?
MR. BRENNAN: 93.
MR. MCDANIEL: 93. When will you be 94?
MR. BRENNAN: In February.
MR. MCDANIEL: In February. So have you had a good retirement?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. I have. I had a little difficulty to start with after retiring, and I went back and worked two or three times. And right that, I lost track of where people were and I had to give up on that part of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: So I set out to do my family genealogy, and it was awfully dull to start with. I didn't know very much to start on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And I kept going, though. Finally, I begin to find bits and pieces. And as time went on, it all began to fit together, and I got a lot of stuff on my mother's family.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where did they come from originally?
MR. BRENNAN: From Ireland.
MR. MCDANIEL: From Ireland?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. Well, my father's family came from Ireland, too, but my grandfather Brennan came over on a sailboat in 1820, and I never did as much on them, but I got quite a little. But my mother's family had been here for I guess maybe 150 years before then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how did they end up in this area? A lot of them came into the Appalachia area?
MR. BRENNAN: Well --
MR. MCDANIEL: I know a lot of Scotch-Irish _____ ended up --
MR. BRENNAN: Some of them came into Pennsylvania, and some of them came into Virginia. And they were from this area. Oh, what's the name of that little place?
MR. MCDANIEL: [Background talk]
MR. BRENNAN: In Virginia. Up in Virginia. What's the name of that town pretty near -- Abington.
MR. MCDANIEL: Abington, yeah.
MR. BRENNAN: That area. I come across --
MR. MCDANIEL: [Background talk]
MR. BRENNAN: There's one I never did get him connected in real well, an old preacher that came into Pennsylvania. And there was a story about him, Old Red Stone. And once I found out about that, I was on the way through Nashville, and I stopped off at -- there's only four books in Tennessee on Old Red Stone they told me at the library. They told me where they were. I stopped in off in Nashville, in checkout this one. And he had come to Tennessee -- I mean Virginia to visit his family. But never did ever identify any of them so I would know whether they was related or not.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But in that story, some 65 or 75 pages, I had copies made of it, it listed his family. Well, it was a very interesting story, but I never could connect it to mine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: I don't have a computer here, and that's the way to do those things anymore.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course. Of course. That's the way to do it now.
MR. BRENNAN: Because from what he has reported in his story, they were relatives, but he didn't name anybody in particular who was his relative.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Well, I was just wondering how your family ended up in the region, I guess.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah?
MR. MCDANIEL: But --
MR. BRENNAN: Well, my Grandfather Brennan, came down from Ohio. One of those little town on the west border of Ohio, anyhow, to Monroe County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: He was here in the Civil War, and it was thought that -- I don't know as anybody ever had any real true story on it or not -- they came through this area while he was in the service in the Civil War.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And came back to Monroe County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BRENNAN: He was there for several year.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did you have any relatives or anybody that worked at Oak Ridge during the last 60 years or so besides you?
MR. BRENNAN: My father and my brother worked there, but believe it was farther back than 60.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they work there when they were building it, or did they work after --
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. He worked there pretty well all through it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. What did they do?
MR. BRENNAN: My father got a job at the water pump house out on the river, and my brother worked in the sheet metal trade.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. So they worked there.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh. And did they stay there very long?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they stayed several years. I'm not real sure how long.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? All right. Well, Mr. Brennan, I sure do appreciate you taking time this afternoon to talk with us.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's interesting to talk to somebody who was there before Oak Ridge was there.
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: And to know something about the community and the people. That's not Wheat. There are not very many of you folks left. There's some Wheat folks left, but not very many of the others.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, there's a few scattered here and there. There's a lady that lives out there at Powell still is just a little bit younger, just a few months younger than I. But I don't think she's in shape now to be interviewed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And there's a few odd ones about that I can remember.
MR. MCDANIEL: I won't tell them you call them "odd."
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: Okay. Well, I'll be --
MR. MCDANIEL: I know what you mean. [Laughs] All right, sir. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
MR. BRENNAN: There is one story that --
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: -- that I will tell you about that I never had _____ any time since.
MR. MCDANIEL: This is the opportunity. Right now is the time for you to tell it.
MR. BRENNAN: There was -- I'm going to get these things out. They bother me a little bit.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, go ahead.
MR. BRENNAN: There was a murder out there at one time up near the Children's Museum. There were four fellows, whose aim in life didn't amount to much, but they knew about a fella in Knoxville that had an old taxicab and they told what kind it was, but I can't remember now. Anyhow, it was not a Ford or a Chevrolet. It was, oh, an Essex or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now about what year was this?
MR. BRENNAN: ‘23 or ‘24.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. ‘23 or ‘24. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. And they set out there one time and eventually had it pretty well planned in though anyhow. And they had went to Knoxville and hired this cab driver to bring them back to Clinton, and that's all that they told him about at the time. When they got to Clinton with him, one of them told him he was going to have to take them on toward Oliver Springs and to Harriman. Well, they didn't want to do that. The cab driver had a friend that he picked up and went with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BRENNAN: And that night -- and they went through Clinton, and they picked up a young fella there, and they went onto what is now Oak Ridge up on top of that ridge going towards Oliver Springs. There were just little winding roads. They went up to it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And the reason I say they had it planned was they stopped up there and did a little bit of searching around, finally found the place they wanted to find and took these two men down there and there was -- I saw the place later -- there was an open crater, big open hole in the ground must of been 50 or 60 feet across. And I always had the idea of one of these meteorites had maybe fallen there and made that hole in there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: So they took and got into that hole and tied them up each to a separate tree, and this one fella in particular they cut his throat, and the other one, I can't remember if they cut his throat or not. But anyhow, they left him tied up there, and this one who the old cab somehow got himself loose and got his cut in his throat stopped it where the blood -- where he didn't lose blood as fast as he was since his tying. And before he got that all accomplished, they came back to make sure that they had killed them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And the old fella that came with him evidently was dead. And this one quit breathing and satisfied them that he was dead.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: But after they left, that fella got loose from his tree and started out. He didn't know where he was. He wasn't familiar with him at all. And he went down toward where the high school is, in that pool.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: There was a pool of water. There was a pool of water there even then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And he got down to that point, somehow got around on that old road and got back going west and there was an old storehouse out there. I believe that the Presbyterian Church. It might of been the Methodist. And it's still there, the church is.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And he got up on the porch at this man's house that run store. And he created enough ruckus out there that the man woke up and went out to see about it. He was a fearless old man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: He went out there during their struggle. Anyhow, he got his wife up, and she -- And they got him inside, and she was did what she could for him, and right away, as I was telling before, they had telephones. And so he called a sheriff and the sheriff got a doctor, and they came out there that night and did what they could for the old boy, and they were sure he would die before daylight.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, 'cause he'd lost so much blood.
MR. BRENNAN: He had lost a lot of blood. And when daylight came, he was still living. They patched him up and he lived on there for 15 or 20 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? And he was the cab driver, right?
MR. BRENNAN: He was the cab driver.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And at that time the old sheriff was Walter Roberts, and he was sheriff of Roane County, but he got involved in it somehow.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And he just kept after him, and he found -- he got caught with one of them in Oak Dale, I believe, and he was in a culvert under the road. It was daytime already, and he'd got in that culvert to be out of sight. And he arrested him and he found out where the others were and he ran them all down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: As the story went, they were tried and sentenced to death at Clinton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BRENNAN: Now nobody that I know of has ever picked up on that story, but I went to the library and went through those old newspapers for that period of time and searched it out and I've got the old newspaper clippings at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. That's amazing. I'd like to have a copy of that. I'd like to have a copy of those newspaper clippings. That's interesting.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you it's hard to read the old reduced print wasn't so good at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: And there's times where it smeared a little bit, but it makes an interesting story anyhow.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. And you were just a little kid when all that went on.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. I can remember my father coming home. He had been out on some of his rounds, and he came home and was telling my mother about that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And somehow I got -- I forgot what I picked up that gave me the timing on it, but somewhere I found out what year it was, and I knew it was in the wintertime.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was there any reason? Were those guys trying to rob his cab?
MR. BRENNAN: They just wanted his cab.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that what it was?
MR. BRENNAN: They were going to take his cab, take off somewhere --
MR. MCDANIEL: And sell it?
MR. BRENNAN: -- at that day, though, if you got out of state, chances of you being caught wasn't so likely.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: But they ended you paying for it by their lives.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how long did it take for them to be hanged after this happened. Was or pretty quick or did it take a while?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it was a while. They went through this trial period and tried them in criminal court.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh. And they were hanged in Clinton from what you understand.
MR. BRENNAN: I tell you, I bet they hung him Nashville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did they?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: I believe that's what happened there.
MR. MCDANIEL: So they were tried in Clinton.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. They were tried in Clinton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's an interesting story. That's a good story.
MR. BRENNAN: But somebody along the way ought to remember saying if you committed a crime and your sentence -- out to get you, it's best you just go ahead and give up because he wasn't quitting until he found you.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was going to find you, huh? And he was the Roane County sheriff.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah, he was the Roane County sheriff.
MR. MCDANIEL: Roane County sheriff.
MR. BRENNAN: I've got -- with that newspaper stuff, I've got the pictures of the four of them and evidently at two different times because at one time, this picture in that is of that old -- I think it's Walter Roberts' picture. He's a long, tall, gangling fella. And from that picture, you wouldn't want him coming after you I don't believe at all.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I guess not. All right, sir. Well, we appreciate it. We thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
MR. BRENNAN: You're welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. Very good.
[End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF JAMES BRENNAN
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
November 2, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is November the 2nd, 2011, and I am at the home of Mr. James Brennan in Knoxville. Mr. Brennan, thank you for taking time to talk to us.
MR. BRENNAN: Thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, let's just go back to the very beginning. Tell me where you were born and something about your family and where you went to school, and…
MR. BRENNAN: My mother and father bought this farm in Bear Creek Valley I would guess about 1915 because they moved in on it in January of 1916. And it's the second farm west of the Anderson Roane County Line, in Bear Creek Valley. And they were there until the government took the property.
MR. MCDANIEL: And so they moved there in 1916, you said, January 1916.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where were they before? Where were they living before?
MR. BRENNAN: They were living in Knoxville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, living in Knoxville?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. And my father was always interested in farming, and he contacted this fellow that was selling some real estate, and that's how he come to know about this place. Now at the time, it was very rural, very rural. And by that, I mean in the wintertime, the roads were impassable. My first school was Mount Horab, which was farther west in the valley, and off of the Valley Road somewhat back in I guess you'd say a holler.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now what year were you born?
MR. BRENNAN: 1918.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1918.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: And so you were born on the farm there, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: And now, did you have brothers and sisters?
MR. BRENNAN: I had an older brother and a younger sister. And my older brother started school first, of course. And I followed up in a year or two and we both went to the same school for about two years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how many acres were on the farm?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, 65 acres.
MR. MCDANIEL: 65 acres.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now you said it was the second farm from the Roane County Line.
MR. BRENNAN: From Anderson Roane County Line.
MR. MCDANIEL: Anderson Roane County Line, right.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now I guess that line is the same today as it was then.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I'm satisfied it is. Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you were in Bear Creek Valley.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. If you're familiar with it, it has this large spring, a good heavy flowing creek away from it, and that's right on the county line.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right on the county line.
MR. BRENNAN: The spring is on the county line. And as I was saying, we went to this Mount Horab School, and our teacher was Alice Henry, and that would have been in the years around 1920 when I was there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now was there only one teacher? Was it just a one-room school?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, it's a one-room school, yes, sir. It was just a little building big enough to have maybe, oh, 25-30 children. And she lived in the Wheat area, and drove a horse and buggy to the school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And that was common transportation at that time, and she just brought along enough feed for the horse and everything went well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And we had to carry our lunch to school. We didn't have a McDonald's close by.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, right. Exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: 'Bout everything went off pretty. Now --
MR. MCDANIEL: How far did you live from the schoolhouse?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, about a mile.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you walked every day.
MR. BRENNAN: We did, yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And I don't know how she did it, but she took care of all six classes or seven or eight. I guess there was --
MR. MCDANIEL: It was probably like first grade through eighth grade, wasn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: It was. And she managed all the classes. Of course, we were all there in the one room, and we I guess all benefited a little bit from whatever class she was teaching.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And, well, I was at that school for two years, and an uncle, my mother's brother, living in Knoxville, died, and he had a mom-and-pop grocery store. So my father decided that he'd take over the store and we moved to Knoxville for a period of about four years. But then the 1929 Depression came on and just before that, the fellow who owned the property where the store was located decided that he didn't want to lease the store any longer, so he left my father to choose something else to do. And then as things got bad from the Depression, he decided to go back to the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Go back to the farm.
MR. BRENNAN: And that's when things got interesting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, at least he could grow his own food out there.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. He did, and bought another little store that there in the community. And you would expect it not to do well at all, But in that day, people didn't mind to walk, and they would walk for miles and carry chickens and eggs and whatever they had to sell.
MR. MCDANIEL: So he bought a store out in Bear Creek Valley.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. Right near where we lived.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, right near where you lived. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And in time, he moved it right into the house that we were living in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And during that time, too, he established himself a route where he drove a team and a wagon, and took along ordinary things that people might buy at that time, like coffee and salt and sugar and such merchandise as that. And he bought about anything they had. He would buy skins from animals. He'd buy rabbits, squirrels, dressed. They had to be dressed and he'd take them to market. And it started off slow, but before very long, he had a pretty lively business out of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: So he traded a lot of stuff with the people.
MR. BRENNAN: He did. Yes, sir. He sold them what he had that they might need, and he bought what they had that he could make use of.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: And --
MR. MCDANIEL: Now I bet by this time, you're probably old enough to go with him on that, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: No, not really.
MR. MCDANIEL: Not really?
MR. BRENNAN: I wasn't born till 1918, so I was too little for it in the beginning.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] yeah.
MR. BRENNAN: But in 1922, his business had done well, and he bought a Model T truck.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And at that time, you could buy them most any way that you like. He bought one that didn't have a seat or a top for it, or not very many -- it had no bed on it. He just had a wooden box up there that he sat on to start with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where did he buy that? Did he buy it --?
MR. BRENNAN: He bought it at Clinton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, he bought it in Clinton. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. Clinton was the nearest town of any size to --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And I'm sure he walked to Clinton. There wasn't any bus service or much way to hitch a ride, and I'm satisfied he walked all the way to Clinton to get that truck.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was 1922?
MR. BRENNAN: In 1922.
MR. MCDANIEL: Interesting story. Just a sideline. I was telling you earlier about this Granger County project that I'm working on --
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- the Jarnagin Ford, I heard the story one of his relatives told the story about how he got his Ford dealership. He was one of the first five Ford dealers in the world.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh.
MR. MCDANIEL: And he said when he got started getting his cars, this was about 1917, they were shipped on the train just in boxes, and when they got to him, he had to put them together.
MR. BRENNAN: I've heard that, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, but --
MR. BRENNAN: I don't know whether this was shipped to Clinton or not. I guess it was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, once he got his truck, he could get to Knoxville and back in a much shorter time than when he was going with the team and wagon.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: About one time to Knoxville during the week was all he could do with a team and wagon.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, in the wintertime, though, the road got so bad he couldn't get into the house where we lived, and Scarborough, which was about five miles away, was as near as he could get to the house where he could leave his truck. And he left it in a lady's barn and she let him lock it up and all of that. And then he'd start walking home. Well, excuse me. We had a telephone system out there at that time, and he'd go to the telephone office and call my mother and she would saddle up two mules and my brother would take mules, go meet him. They understood how to travel over the roadway to meet him. So my brother would ride one of the mules, lead the other one, go meet him. Then they'd come back home. The following day, he had to take those mules and wagon and go to Scarborough and change whatever he had bought onto that wagon and bring it home. This was during the winter months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: In the summer months, it was dry enough he could get home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BRENNAN: But that was the way it was done at that time. And you wouldn't believe it, but at every stream that you came to, you had to ford.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: There was no bridges, no -- well, there's a bridge over the river, but there was no bridges over these little streams or culverts.
MR. MCDANIEL: Those small streams. Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But it had a purpose, too. When you got there with your livestock, they were ready to have a drink of water, so you wheeled in there and let them have a drink, and then you got back on the road again.
MR. MCDANIEL: Got back on the road.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, he carried on like this until uncle died, and we went to Knoxville for a period of time, then we came back home. And he continued the store for a period of time and the route that he had picked up from this person. And finally, that, along with other interests that he had, he had to drop some of it because it was he really had too much to do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Too much to try to do.
MR. BRENNAN: He finally stopped the route and he got out and traded cattle, bought and sold, and traded anyway that was possible.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did he still keep the little store?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. He had the little store during the early part of that. And he'd get these cattle together and they had an auction sale on cattle every Wednesday at Knoxville. And we would load those cattle up and take them to Knoxville and sell them on the market. And as time went on, he got busier and busier at that. There was a good many livestock down in that area and it provided him with a busy occupation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, a fellow came in with a sawmill during that period of time to cut a boundary of timber, and like I say, that was during the Depression. And they never did ever get off the ground with that saw mill. And the fellow had a new tractor that he had bought, and he owed for it. And he got pretty desperate and he finally came to see my father and he learned that my father had a good boundary of timber he had bought on an adjoining property as it became for sale. And finally, up to about 340 acres.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. BRENNAN: And we would keep a herd of cattle and looked after them all during that time, and he would trade whatever he had, a milk cow, for one that wasn't giving milk, and go through all that bit. We always had something to buy or something to sell.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And I tell you, we worked like the dickens.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. But it sounds like you all did pretty good through the Depression. I mean, as far as you had plenty to eat and --
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah, as far as goods, we were raising most everything that people had on the farm that they needed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And --
MR. MCDANIEL: It sounds like your father was a pretty smart man, I mean, as far as businessperson and being able to make.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it's odd. He only had a third grade education, but he knew how to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: And he just once he got into that saw mill, that was on level with the farm in priorities, you know?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: We had to look after the sawmill as well as the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: So he ended up with the sawmill.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, he bought a share in it, at last.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BRENNAN: And this fellow stayed on. And we cut and sawed several boundaries of timber during this time and we were farming, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: At this point, how old were you?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I was in my teens.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, you were in your teens.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were working then, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: You better believe I was working.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] He started us pretty early, and we did whatever we could. That was -- well, like this fellow that I knew in the service said many times, it's just like Sunday on the farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, so you were a teenager and you were working and you had the sawmill and you had the farm and you were helping your father with all that.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. My brother and I, and he was older. He had to do a little more than I did, I guess.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did your father have other people that worked for him?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, he did during the time that -- well, even early in that community, there was a good many people that was always ready to help you if you needed something.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And many of them didn't do much in the way of farming. It was kind of odd, but that's the way it was. And there was a whole lot of timber in the area at the time, too, and he bought _____ timber, and we just moved the sawmill about from place to place, and at the same time, we were keeping up with that farm work. And there was just never and idle moment, I'll tell you.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] [Background talk] Well, good. Well, so where were you about that time? Were you in school at this point? Were you going to high school or…?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, part of the time I was in grade school. Then later on, in high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. Where'd you go to high school?
MR. BRENNAN: Robertsville.
MR. MCDANIEL: At Robertsville.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Now about how far was that from where you lived?
MR. BRENNAN: It was some nine or ten miles by road. There was a way that we could take a short route, cross-country, sort of. It wasn't very suitable for an automobile or anything, but we did at times drive this pickup truck to school. The bus only served the schools during the eight months of the year, but high school continued for nine months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And we had to get --
MR. MCDANIEL: Had to get to school, didn't you?
MR. BRENNAN: -- to school any way we could.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: So we used that pickup truck he had, and drove that old road that went as the crow flies.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, as the crow flies.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about the school. Tell me a little bit about Robertsville. How many students were there?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, Robertsville had a grade school and a high school together, and it varied, but it was around 200 in both high school and grade school.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was most of the area.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, that was the only school.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. That was --
MR. MCDANIEL: The only high school in the area.
MR. BRENNAN: That was the only high school in that end of the county. Those that were on the east side of the river went to Clinton during the time I was in. But they had gone to Robertsville earlier. But anyhow, they went to Clinton into Claxton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And that was the only schools in that general area.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you, since you were a young man growing up in that area, what was the community like? What were the people like?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they were farm people, and, well, some of them could read and write, and some of them couldn't. And…
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have a doctor in the community? Did you have teacher?
MR. BRENNAN: Our nearest doctor was at Wheat.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, was it?
MR. BRENNAN: Dr. Cross at Wheat. And if anybody got sick, the old doc got out with his horse and buggy and went to see about them. And if anybody saw him coming and had a little something that you want to talk to him about, they just stopped him and he's stop and talk. He would look at a patient on the way to see another one.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course.
MR. BRENNAN: And do things like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah.
MR. BRENNAN: Very accommodating.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess speaking of Wheat, Wheat was kind of a thriving community at that point, wasn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it was, but I don't think it was more so than Scarborough and Robertsville was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Huh.
MR. BRENNAN: They claimed to be the most, but anyhow, you know everybody lays claim to something that might be interesting.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] But Robertsville and Scarborough was pretty -- I guess you had everything you needed.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, yeah. At Scarborough, we had three stores and two churches and a school and two gristmills. That's where they grind your corn and all that. There was a fellow that had a garage that repaired cars that sort of thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Speaking of cars, I bet that truck was one of the first ones in the community, wasn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: It was one of the very first.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: In fact, during the timeline while my brother and I were young and we were living there in Bear Creek Valley, if we heard a car or a truck off in the distance, we went out front to watch it go by.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: We sure did.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: I know there was one fellow, too, had an old motorcycle, and at times, he'd ride that motorcycle and come down in the valley and go back up the valley. We always went out to cheer him on, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Background talk] So, anyway, I was asking about you said his was the first car, the first truck --
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- I guess in the area. So all right, so let's move on past that. So you graduated high school.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year did you graduate?
MR. BRENNAN: In '38.
MR. MCDANIEL: In '38. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I spent six years to get through high school. My father kept me out two years when we were real busy with that sawmill and I had to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: But I was out for two years after my junior year.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? So you --
MR. BRENNAN: Then I went back and finished in '38.
MR. MCDANIEL: Went back and finished. Now did you go into the service right away or what happened?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, no. I didn't go into the service until '42.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BRENNAN: January of '42, I went in to the service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me what happened between when you graduated high school and you went into the service.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, the one thing that happened was that my father had bought a little farm at Scarborough, and it had about 65 acres, had an estate sale to settle an estate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: It was the -- there was one other house going down Bethel Valley that had electric current and stopped right there. And we never could get it down where we had lived on the farm. He bought property because of the fact that electric current was --
MR. MCDANIEL: It had electricity.
MR. BRENNAN: And we prepared the house and they moved up there. And I was only home about week after they moved up there before going to service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And they stayed on, and I guess they would have probably stayed there as long as they lived if the government hadn't chose that area for what it did.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went into the service in January of '42?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: So a month after Pearl Harbor.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me, did you volunteer?
MR. BRENNAN: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. BRENNAN: I volunteered.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor?
MR. BRENNAN: I was home at that time. See, that was in '41, and I was home at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. But what were your thoughts or your folks' thoughts on that?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, like everybody else, I guess, I was upset with it, but there was nothing you could do. It had already happened and you felt sure something worse was coming on, so it did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. So you joined the service. What branch of the service?
MR. BRENNAN: Army.
MR. MCDANIEL: The Army? Now where was your brother at this point?
MR. BRENNAN: My brother had married and I guess he had two children at that time. And he never did have to go. He had a job at Alcoa by that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did he?
MR. BRENNAN: And he never did ever go to service.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went in the service in '42.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: And how long did you stay in the service?
MR. BRENNAN: I stayed in the service 3 years and about 10 months, but I spent 38 months overseas.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And you were gone when your parents had to move.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I'd been in the service a year, and at times when they were writing to me, they mentioned things that was going on. They didn't know what was coming about, but at first, I believe it was known as a demolition area. And as time went on, people began to realize it was something different than a demolition area, because all this activity and building and carrying on like that. They realized that there was something bigger happening.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And then they finally let it be known that the government was to build a facility there. While I was down there in Southwest Pacific, a fellow got a letter from his brother, and he had a return address on it was Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And I was the only person in the unit from Tennessee, so right away, he came to visit me and know where Oak Ridge, Tennessee was. I told him, I said, "I never heard of the place in my life."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And he showed me the letter. I read it, and the way it was describing things, it sort of cleared up a little bit to me where it was. And I told him, I said, "I bet you that's that place where I lived." And later on, I found out for sure it was. But his brother had written something to him that I guess he never should have written. He said he told him, he said, "I can't tell you what's going on here, but," he says, "I know they're experimenting with atomic energy." And that's all it would have took to put him away if they'd a known he did that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, as time went on, then, my parents kept me pretty well up to date on the happenings and how changes were going on and where it was and the lot.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now when did they have to move?
MR. BRENNAN: They had to move out in November -- or December.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of '42.
MR. BRENNAN: Of '42. And they gave them ten days. And we must of had 40 head of cattle and maybe that many hogs.
MR. MCDANIEL: And he had the two farms by this point, didn't he? He had the smaller one where he was living?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it was separate from these others, but the rest of it was all in one track. Anyhow, I don't know he ever got rid of what he had.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. But they had ten days to get out.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, do you remember how much they paid him?
MR. BRENNAN: They were only going to pay him $7,000.00 to begin with, and he took it to federal court.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did he?
MR. BRENNAN: And they just about double what he had been offered to start with. But he still --
MR. MCDANIEL: It still wasn't enough, was it?
MR. BRENNAN: No, sir. And his money was held up and he never did ever own any farmland anymore.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: No, he wanted to get a farm, but he never was able to have a farmland anymore.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh. Where did they move to?
MR. BRENNAN: They moved to this area between here and Oak Ridge, down there at a place on Merchants Road, just off Clinton Highway, about --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BRENNAN: -- back in this direction.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And they lived there a while until this property at Powell was -- I guess it was sold to settle an estate. Anyhow, there were three houses and about three acres, I guess. And he bought that and they moved to Powell and lived for some ten years. They were living there when I came home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Did he stay -- a lot of people that I've talked to, they were upset over what happened, and they never really got over it.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, he never did, either.
MR. MCDANIEL: He never did?
MR. BRENNAN: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: He just felt like they'd done him wrong.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they really had. I don't know what the fear of the people who was living there was like, but for some reason they wanted all those people out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And those people coming in there, they knew very little about, and if a fellow was a thug, he come in there and work through all of that and get out and go on his way.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And there was all kinds of criminals came in there during that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you thought and I guess your father's thought was they should of just let him stay.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they didn't do anything on his farm there except put a water line through for, well, until this Spallation Neutron Source came about.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And it's right in the middle of the farmland my father had.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is it right in the middle where the farm is?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. Well, I guess they had to clear everybody out 'cause at least they thought they did.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they thought they did, and they sure did, too. One old fella just didn't agree to peacefully, and they move him across the river.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. And left his buildings and everything. Well, as soon as they got through with him, he just picked up and went back across the river where he had been.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? My goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] They came in and burned his barn down, and his house and didn't leave anything in the way of a shelter for him. And this was in mid-winter. He had to go somewhere after that. I don't know what happened to him.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. My goodness. So your parents moved to Powell, and that's where they were living when you got back.
MR. BRENNAN: When I got out of service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Got out of the service.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you said 38 months you were overseas. Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where were you?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I came home from the Southwest Pacific, Solomon Islands in 1944.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And I was assured that I wouldn't be shipped out anywhere else for at least six months. But five months later, I was getting on a ship and we went to Europe for the Belgium and the Bulge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And I was over there nine months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? My goodness. So you were discharged when?
MR. BRENNAN: In '45.
MR. MCDANIEL: After --
MR. BRENNAN: November.
MR. MCDANIEL: November. So they kept you in the service until after the war was over.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, see, the reason for it was, the troops that was over there that didn't have much time in was going to be sent on to Japan. And we became the Army of Occupation, and all during that time, while they were getting those ready to send them to Japan, we were more or less policing the country.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And we had the routes that we patrolled and did that sort of thing. The time came on and they let us know we were going to be sent home. And we were in Bavaria. That's sitting pretty deep into Europe. And we got on a train, trains and they brought us back into France. And we went into France at La Havre and we went out when we left at La Havre.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where were you when you heard about the atomic bombs being dropped?
MR. BRENNAN: I was in Germany.
MR. MCDANIEL: In Germany?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And I guess they talked about Oak Ridge?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I don't know that they did so much. At that time, we got news of things, but kind of slow. Well, when --
MR. MCDANIEL: But I guess about that time, things were kind of wrapping up in Europe, weren't they?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. It was.
MR. MCDANIEL: Things were kind of settling down a little bit in Europe.
MR. BRENNAN: I remember when Roosevelt died, we were there, and a German lady came to -- we were just out rambling around. A German lady came to the window in the house and raised the window and asked us if we had heard that Roosevelt had died. She knew it before we did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. My goodness. Okay. So you came home from the service in November of '45. So tell me about what happened then.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, after I got home, I looked around for a job. It was pretty important to get a job pretty quick because to make that kind of an adjustment if you was busy doing something, it was easier.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But it took me about a month, but I got a job at that water plant.
MR. MCDANIEL: The water plant at where?
MR. BRENNAN: At Whitwell, the one high on the hill. And I worked there for I guess nearly five years, but it was a dead-end kind of a job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: They never had good pay rates or good conditions or anything, and I didn't enjoy the work, either. And when I could, I got out and got into --
MR. MCDANIEL: Trouble?
MR. BRENNAN: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: I stayed out of trouble. I got into studying refrigeration.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MR. BRENNAN: And after a period of time, I got a job at Kingsport. I went up there and worked a year with some people who was pretty sharp in the work I was doing. I came back to Knoxville then and went to work out there at K-35.
MR. MCDANIEL: K-33?
MR. BRENNAN: K-33. That's right.
MR. MCDANIEL: K-33. Yeah. What'd you do out there?
MR. BRENNAN: I did pipe work.
MR. MCDANIEL: You did your pipe work?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. Now were they building it then, or it had already been built?
MR. BRENNAN: They were in the process of building K-33. It was pretty well along when I got there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But it was well underway at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm. So you didn't -- How long did you stay out there?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I stayed out there for about a year. And I came into Knoxville I started working for the local contractors. And I did that until I retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: What kind of work did you do?
MR. BRENNAN: Mostly refrigeration.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. At that time --
MR. MCDANIEL: Commercial type?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah, commercial and residential, too, a little bit.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you? Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And I worked there until I retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did you retire?
MR. BRENNAN: In '84.
MR. MCDANIEL: '84?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were well beyond retirement age when you retired, weren't you?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, no. I --
MR. MCDANIEL: When you work for yourself, I guess you don't ever get to retire. You just kind of quit, don't you? [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] Well, I worked for a contractor till the time I retired. We had pretty good benefits and better than average working salary.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yep? Well, that's good. That's good. So your parents, they stayed in Powell, you said, for about ten years?
MR. BRENNAN: No, sir. They stayed out there for about ten years and then they moved to Knoxville over off of Broadway at Canyon Avenue, right there near Rose's Funeral Home.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: My father was still working at that time, and he had moved over there earlier.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Exactly. What have I not asked you about that you wanna talk about?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, I don't --
MR. MCDANIEL: Why didn't you stay at K-25 -- I mean, K-33?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, see, it was winding down, the construction was, and it came a time when they were laying off people and, of course, I hadn't been there too awfully long anyhow, so they laid me off and started work here in vs.
MR. MCDANIEL: Who was your boss over there? Do you remember?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, let me see. The fella's name was Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: What?
MR. BRENNAN: Center, C-E-N-T-E-R.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BRENNAN: And they name the little Park.
MR. MCDANIEL: Park Center.
MR. BRENNAN: Park Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: Clark Center.
MR. BRENNAN: Clark, Clark is the name, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Clark Center.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. The reason I come to remember him, I'd been to a movie or a basketball game or something there one night, and I was on Clinton Highway and he hit me in the rear.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs] And didn't tear my car up too bad, but it tore his up worse than it did mine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did it? Oh, my.
MR. BRENNAN: Anyhow, he didn't want the police to come, so, well, we talked a little bit, and he told me about who he was and where he was. I had to tell him about working there, too. And he said, "Oh, we can settle this tomorrow." I let him con me into that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BRENNAN: The next day, I was go up and see him. I went up to see him and I guess you'd say he was kind of businesslike about it. He already had a sheet of paper about this long written out and he just handed it to me and said, "Read this and sign it." I looked it over and I told him, I said, "And I'm gonna read this paper."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: "But I promise you now I'm not gonna sign it." "Oh, yes, you are." I said, "You misunderstood me. I told you wouldn't sign it. But I am gonna read it and you be quiet while I read it." So I read the paper, and he had it written up that I was to assume all responsibility for that accident.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And I told him, I said, "Something happened to you during the night." I said, "You must a forgotten that you hit me in the back." He said, "You just sign that paper." I said, "Mister, I already told you, you don't hear good. I won't sign that paper or any other paper you write out."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
Mr. Brennan: And, oh, we carried on there for a little while. He wasn't very pleasant at all, and finally I told him, I said, "Now I've done all I'm gonna do I may as well go back to work. And day or two later, he had my general foreman informed me that I was to come up and see him. And I told that old boy, I said, "Now, listen. I'm not going up there 'cause all we can have up there is a cuss fight, and I don't want that, and he wants me to sign a paper of full responsibility for a wreck that he caused. I'm not gonna do it." Well, he said, "It'd make it easier on me if you'd go up there." I said, "Well, for your benefit I'll go. But I know already we're not gonna get along. We're gonna have a fight."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: I got up there and he had another paper written out that wasn't too different from the first one. Said, "Read this and sign it," I said, "Listen, I've told you already, I'm not gonna sign any paper, but I will read it. I'll do that much for you. I'll read it. I read it, and I passed it back to him, and he's said, "You sign that." I said, "No, I won't sign it." Well, he didn't know what to do so finally I went on back to work, and the next time I heard from him, he was furious, and he still wanted me to assume responsibility for the wreck. I said, "Now, listen, I filed a claim with your insurance company. They've already written a check and I've already put it in the bank."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: "And if you want any money out of my insurance company, you're gonna have to file a claim, and if they want to pay you anything, that's all right with me. But I'll tell you now, they're not gonna pay you.”
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: He said, "That's what makes me so mad." Said, "My wife has give me hell over this."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: I said, "Now I can't help you with your wife, but I'm not gonna sign any paper. So that's about all I can do for you."
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, a little more time went by. He came out on the job and hunted me up there one day. And he was still feuding about that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And, well, I didn't work too long after that and I don't know how he ever came out, but the insurance company's -- I told him, I said, "You know more about insurance companies than I do and you know how they settle things. And they've already settled with me. If you've got a gripe, you'll have to get it settled."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] That's funny. My goodness.
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, it was kind of humorous as the time went on. When I told him I couldn't help him with his wife, he'd have to take care of that himself, everybody around him laughed. [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Oh, that's funny. I've never heard that story, but that's a good story to have about old Clark Center. [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: Well, that's the only run-in I ever had with him, so that's the only way I really knew him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, you know how to tell it, isn't it?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. Well, is there anything else that we hadn't talked about that you want to talk about?
MR. BRENNAN: Oh, I don't know of anything in particular.
MR. MCDANIEL: How old are you now? 93?
MR. BRENNAN: 93.
MR. MCDANIEL: 93. When will you be 94?
MR. BRENNAN: In February.
MR. MCDANIEL: In February. So have you had a good retirement?
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. I have. I had a little difficulty to start with after retiring, and I went back and worked two or three times. And right that, I lost track of where people were and I had to give up on that part of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: So I set out to do my family genealogy, and it was awfully dull to start with. I didn't know very much to start on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And I kept going, though. Finally, I begin to find bits and pieces. And as time went on, it all began to fit together, and I got a lot of stuff on my mother's family.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where did they come from originally?
MR. BRENNAN: From Ireland.
MR. MCDANIEL: From Ireland?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. Well, my father's family came from Ireland, too, but my grandfather Brennan came over on a sailboat in 1820, and I never did as much on them, but I got quite a little. But my mother's family had been here for I guess maybe 150 years before then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how did they end up in this area? A lot of them came into the Appalachia area?
MR. BRENNAN: Well --
MR. MCDANIEL: I know a lot of Scotch-Irish _____ ended up --
MR. BRENNAN: Some of them came into Pennsylvania, and some of them came into Virginia. And they were from this area. Oh, what's the name of that little place?
MR. MCDANIEL: [Background talk]
MR. BRENNAN: In Virginia. Up in Virginia. What's the name of that town pretty near -- Abington.
MR. MCDANIEL: Abington, yeah.
MR. BRENNAN: That area. I come across --
MR. MCDANIEL: [Background talk]
MR. BRENNAN: There's one I never did get him connected in real well, an old preacher that came into Pennsylvania. And there was a story about him, Old Red Stone. And once I found out about that, I was on the way through Nashville, and I stopped off at -- there's only four books in Tennessee on Old Red Stone they told me at the library. They told me where they were. I stopped in off in Nashville, in checkout this one. And he had come to Tennessee -- I mean Virginia to visit his family. But never did ever identify any of them so I would know whether they was related or not.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: But in that story, some 65 or 75 pages, I had copies made of it, it listed his family. Well, it was a very interesting story, but I never could connect it to mine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: I don't have a computer here, and that's the way to do those things anymore.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course. Of course. That's the way to do it now.
MR. BRENNAN: Because from what he has reported in his story, they were relatives, but he didn't name anybody in particular who was his relative.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Well, I was just wondering how your family ended up in the region, I guess.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah?
MR. MCDANIEL: But --
MR. BRENNAN: Well, my Grandfather Brennan, came down from Ohio. One of those little town on the west border of Ohio, anyhow, to Monroe County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: He was here in the Civil War, and it was thought that -- I don't know as anybody ever had any real true story on it or not -- they came through this area while he was in the service in the Civil War.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And came back to Monroe County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BRENNAN: He was there for several year.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did you have any relatives or anybody that worked at Oak Ridge during the last 60 years or so besides you?
MR. BRENNAN: My father and my brother worked there, but believe it was farther back than 60.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they work there when they were building it, or did they work after --
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. He worked there pretty well all through it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. What did they do?
MR. BRENNAN: My father got a job at the water pump house out on the river, and my brother worked in the sheet metal trade.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. So they worked there.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh. And did they stay there very long?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, they stayed several years. I'm not real sure how long.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? All right. Well, Mr. Brennan, I sure do appreciate you taking time this afternoon to talk with us.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's interesting to talk to somebody who was there before Oak Ridge was there.
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: And to know something about the community and the people. That's not Wheat. There are not very many of you folks left. There's some Wheat folks left, but not very many of the others.
MR. BRENNAN: Well, there's a few scattered here and there. There's a lady that lives out there at Powell still is just a little bit younger, just a few months younger than I. But I don't think she's in shape now to be interviewed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And there's a few odd ones about that I can remember.
MR. MCDANIEL: I won't tell them you call them "odd."
MR. BRENNAN: [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BRENNAN: Okay. Well, I'll be --
MR. MCDANIEL: I know what you mean. [Laughs] All right, sir. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
MR. BRENNAN: There is one story that --
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, sure.
MR. BRENNAN: -- that I will tell you about that I never had _____ any time since.
MR. MCDANIEL: This is the opportunity. Right now is the time for you to tell it.
MR. BRENNAN: There was -- I'm going to get these things out. They bother me a little bit.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, go ahead.
MR. BRENNAN: There was a murder out there at one time up near the Children's Museum. There were four fellows, whose aim in life didn't amount to much, but they knew about a fella in Knoxville that had an old taxicab and they told what kind it was, but I can't remember now. Anyhow, it was not a Ford or a Chevrolet. It was, oh, an Essex or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now about what year was this?
MR. BRENNAN: ‘23 or ‘24.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. ‘23 or ‘24. Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. And they set out there one time and eventually had it pretty well planned in though anyhow. And they had went to Knoxville and hired this cab driver to bring them back to Clinton, and that's all that they told him about at the time. When they got to Clinton with him, one of them told him he was going to have to take them on toward Oliver Springs and to Harriman. Well, they didn't want to do that. The cab driver had a friend that he picked up and went with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BRENNAN: And that night -- and they went through Clinton, and they picked up a young fella there, and they went onto what is now Oak Ridge up on top of that ridge going towards Oliver Springs. There were just little winding roads. They went up to it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And the reason I say they had it planned was they stopped up there and did a little bit of searching around, finally found the place they wanted to find and took these two men down there and there was -- I saw the place later -- there was an open crater, big open hole in the ground must of been 50 or 60 feet across. And I always had the idea of one of these meteorites had maybe fallen there and made that hole in there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: So they took and got into that hole and tied them up each to a separate tree, and this one fella in particular they cut his throat, and the other one, I can't remember if they cut his throat or not. But anyhow, they left him tied up there, and this one who the old cab somehow got himself loose and got his cut in his throat stopped it where the blood -- where he didn't lose blood as fast as he was since his tying. And before he got that all accomplished, they came back to make sure that they had killed them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And the old fella that came with him evidently was dead. And this one quit breathing and satisfied them that he was dead.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: But after they left, that fella got loose from his tree and started out. He didn't know where he was. He wasn't familiar with him at all. And he went down toward where the high school is, in that pool.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: There was a pool of water. There was a pool of water there even then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And he got down to that point, somehow got around on that old road and got back going west and there was an old storehouse out there. I believe that the Presbyterian Church. It might of been the Methodist. And it's still there, the church is.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BRENNAN: And he got up on the porch at this man's house that run store. And he created enough ruckus out there that the man woke up and went out to see about it. He was a fearless old man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: He went out there during their struggle. Anyhow, he got his wife up, and she -- And they got him inside, and she was did what she could for him, and right away, as I was telling before, they had telephones. And so he called a sheriff and the sheriff got a doctor, and they came out there that night and did what they could for the old boy, and they were sure he would die before daylight.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, 'cause he'd lost so much blood.
MR. BRENNAN: He had lost a lot of blood. And when daylight came, he was still living. They patched him up and he lived on there for 15 or 20 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? And he was the cab driver, right?
MR. BRENNAN: He was the cab driver.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: And at that time the old sheriff was Walter Roberts, and he was sheriff of Roane County, but he got involved in it somehow.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BRENNAN: And he just kept after him, and he found -- he got caught with one of them in Oak Dale, I believe, and he was in a culvert under the road. It was daytime already, and he'd got in that culvert to be out of sight. And he arrested him and he found out where the others were and he ran them all down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: As the story went, they were tried and sentenced to death at Clinton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BRENNAN: Now nobody that I know of has ever picked up on that story, but I went to the library and went through those old newspapers for that period of time and searched it out and I've got the old newspaper clippings at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. That's amazing. I'd like to have a copy of that. I'd like to have a copy of those newspaper clippings. That's interesting.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you it's hard to read the old reduced print wasn't so good at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: And there's times where it smeared a little bit, but it makes an interesting story anyhow.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet. And you were just a little kid when all that went on.
MR. BRENNAN: Yes, sir. I can remember my father coming home. He had been out on some of his rounds, and he came home and was telling my mother about that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BRENNAN: And somehow I got -- I forgot what I picked up that gave me the timing on it, but somewhere I found out what year it was, and I knew it was in the wintertime.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was there any reason? Were those guys trying to rob his cab?
MR. BRENNAN: They just wanted his cab.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that what it was?
MR. BRENNAN: They were going to take his cab, take off somewhere --
MR. MCDANIEL: And sell it?
MR. BRENNAN: -- at that day, though, if you got out of state, chances of you being caught wasn't so likely.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BRENNAN: But they ended you paying for it by their lives.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how long did it take for them to be hanged after this happened. Was or pretty quick or did it take a while?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, it was a while. They went through this trial period and tried them in criminal court.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh. And they were hanged in Clinton from what you understand.
MR. BRENNAN: I tell you, I bet they hung him Nashville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did they?
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BRENNAN: I believe that's what happened there.
MR. MCDANIEL: So they were tried in Clinton.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah. They were tried in Clinton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's an interesting story. That's a good story.
MR. BRENNAN: But somebody along the way ought to remember saying if you committed a crime and your sentence -- out to get you, it's best you just go ahead and give up because he wasn't quitting until he found you.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was going to find you, huh? And he was the Roane County sheriff.
MR. BRENNAN: Yeah, he was the Roane County sheriff.
MR. MCDANIEL: Roane County sheriff.
MR. BRENNAN: I've got -- with that newspaper stuff, I've got the pictures of the four of them and evidently at two different times because at one time, this picture in that is of that old -- I think it's Walter Roberts' picture. He's a long, tall, gangling fella. And from that picture, you wouldn't want him coming after you I don't believe at all.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I guess not. All right, sir. Well, we appreciate it. We thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
MR. BRENNAN: You're welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. Very good.
[End of Interview]